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Thursday, 28 February 2013

University open days: getting the most out of them!

Beyond the prospectuses and pretty
pictures lies the eye-opening experience of an open
day. Sarah Gordon, Senior Events Manager
at London South Bank University (LSBU) offers applicants her tips for test
driving their university choices before making a final decision:

It’s that time of
year. Offers from universities you shortlisted are flooding in and now you need
to make your big decision as to which university will be your first choice
offer and which will end up in second place. But how do you decide?

Sarah Gordon,Senior Events Manager at LSBU

There’s probably
a huge stack of prospectuses in your room gathering dust. You’ve probably spent
hours trawling university websites, looking at blogs and going through league
tables online. You’ve probably spent time talking to your friends and family
about their opinions on the universities you’ve shortlisted. But have you been
for a visit?

So many students
find going to an open day a hassle: taking time out from work or social
activities to make a long journey to see a university they’ve looked at online
a hundred times. Do you really need to visit as well?

But things have
changed so much in recent years, both in the way universities teach and in the
cost of higher education. If you were spending a similar amount of money on purchasing
something for yourself, perhaps a car or a home, you wouldn’t just go by the
online advert and pictures in a sales brochure. You’d take a test drive or
visit so you knew exactly what you were investing your money in. Why not employ the same tactic when choosing
your university?

There is only so
much insight you can get from looking at a prospectus or online course guide.
The only way you can get a true feel for whether a university is the right one
for you is to hop on a train or jump in the car and actually experience it for
yourself; the good, the bad and the ugly.

So here are my
top tips on getting the most out of a visit to a university open day:

Get out there

Visit as many open days as you can; at
least two and ideally three, including one wildcard option. The more
universities you visit and view, the more you will get an idea of what is and isn’t
important to you.

Don’t go it alone

Do take friends and family with you if
you can. Having someone else with you to help take it all in is invaluable, and
everything is always more fun with company. They’re going to remember the stuff
that you don’t and will think of things to ask that you won’t.

Capture the experience

Make notes as you go and take photos to
remind you of the day afterwards. It may look a little weird but if you’re
visiting a few different places, they can soon all merge into one.

Be prepared

Buzz: a busy LSBU open day in 2012

Plan ahead, not only on a practical
level (how you will travel there? Is parking available? Are there places for
lunch?) but also be prepared to be both disappointed and pleasantly surprised
at what you may find when you get there.

I speak to many students who were very
clear about their first choice university, until they went to visit. They
realised that, despite the pretty pictures in the prospectus and the high
ranking in the university guides, it really wasn’t somewhere they could see
themselves. Remember, you are not just joining a course, but a university
community. You need to know you’ll be happy with the course but also the
tutors, your fellow students, the campus facilities and its location. I have
also spoken to students who’ve accompanied friends on open day visits, to
universities they hadn’t considered themselves and have fallen in love with
them.

Let open days open your mind

Be open-minded. Think before you go
about what your wish list would be for the perfect university and then think
about what you may be prepared to compromise on as you visit.

Get past the gloss

Don’t be afraid to speak to any student
guides or ambassadors that are there. Although many of them will be paid to
work, they will also happily give you a warts and all view of student life.
That’s what they’re there for and they will all be keen to talk to you about
the course they are doing and why they chose that particular university.

Sit back and relax

Take time out during your visit to head
to the coffee shop or refectory, grab something to eat or drink and sit back
and take it all in. Can you see yourself
here for the next two to three years?

Grill the tutors

Finally, talk to the tutors too and ask
about the course you’re interested in. Find out how it’s assessed, which
building it’s taught in (and visit that building if you can), what a usual
week’s timetable looks like. This will help you to start building up a picture
of what you’re signing up for.

Open days offer a great opportunity to
double check that the universities you’ve chosen really are the right ones for
you. It’s not just a course you’re buying, but three years of your life and you
need to make sure that you’re going to be happy in your new home. And nothing will beat that feeling of leaving
an open day happy and confident that you have chosen the right place for the
next chapter of your life.